Motor Mouth: What's wrong with this picture?

If the green vehicle lobby wants to gain more public support, they should look to the Rainbow Coalition for some pointers

The turnout at a recent electric vehicle exhibition David Booth attended was underwhelming, and that's putting it mildly. Is this a reflection of the public's feelings on green cars in general?David Booth

I attended Toronto’s Pride revelry last week with my son, Matthew. It was truly, pardon the pun, a gay affair, full of festive spirit, thumping music and the occasional thong underwear, not to mention lots of rainbow-coloured drinks and the best Spock impersonator I have ever seen.

What really impressed me, however, was the incredible community support for the parade. What was once the most shocking event on Toronto’s calendar is now so mainstream that suburbanites now bring their toddlers to Yonge Street like it’s the summer version of the Santa Claus parade: “Oh, look, Brianna, a funny little man wagging his weenie.”

Corporate Canada was there, too, lining the street and making sure that everyone who might be lesbian, bi-sexual, gay and/or transgendered knew they have a friend should they want to unburden themselves of what I am assured is the gay community’s heavier than average wallets. Indeed, nothing says you’ve successfully promoted your cause to the mainstream than having Canada’s archly conservative banks put up the largest exhibits — TD Canada Trust’s having the most “jacked” and manscaped of spokesmodels (says Matt) and wearing the most pathetic excuses for a Speedo (say I) — on the parade route. Other than Toronto’s mayor, Rob Ford, it appears that everyone supports Pride.

Which is more than I can say for an electric vehicle exhibition I attended recently. I won’t name the actual event for wont of kicking an organization when it’s down, but attendance was so paltry that they would have had trouble fielding two lines for a game of shinny. This is not the first such local gathering I’ve attended and they are all characterized by a surprising lack of public interest considering the headlines newspaper and digital media continue to devote to the supposed electric car revolution.

The Toronto World Pride parade heads down Yonge Street in Toronto on Sunday, June 29, 2014.

Pride’s success has me wondering whether the public’s ambivalence stems from a lack of a cohesive message from the alternative engine crowd. Unlike the LGBT crowd, which has, publicly at least, managed its internal strife to produce one tent to stand under (to us “breeders”, everyone under the LGBT tent may seem like one big happy family, but if I’m reading Dan Savage — author of the famed sex advice column Savage Love — right, gays aren’t all that in love with the dykes, there’s a surprising gulf between the transgendered and the transsexual and nobody seems to know what to make of bi-sexual men).

Contrast that with the alternative vehicle lobby, which seems to lob more bombs at its confreres than the gasoline infrastructure it hopes to supplant. Indeed, the pure electric crowd — those favouring cars powered by battery alone — seem to criticize range-extended EVs (like Chevrolet’s Volt) more than gas-hogging SUVs. Natural gas fanatics still — despite more than two decades of fruitless propaganda — contend that LNG-fueled cars are our only salvation and poor plug-in hybrid proponents can’t get a word in edge-wise. There are many reasons — poor EV range, impossibly long payback schedules to anything even remotely green, etc. — that alternative fueled vehicles have failed to catch on, but the popularization of alternatives to fossil fuels has not been helped by a lack of a cohesive message from the proponents of change.

Carlos Ghosn’s reaction to questions about Nissan’s view of hybrids is to sniff the air as if someone had farted. BMW loudly proclaims the “purity” of its new i3, when, in fact, the vast majority of Canadian pre-orders are for the little two-cylinder range-extended model. Elon Musk, the planet’s most successful purveyor of emissions-free automobiles, seems to lob bombs in every direction, pooh-poohing anything other than his battery-powered Model S, with hydrogen- fueled cars and Toyota the target of special disdain.

And Toyota’s recent introduction of its first fuel-cell vehicle was the impetus for Musk’s scorn. Toyota has just announced its first production hydrogen-fueled sedan in Japan (priced at seven-million yen — about $74,000) in Japan and, interestingly, its messaging seems more focused on comparing the technology with natural gas and battery-powered cars than comparisons with the gasoline-fueled status quo.

I suspect that we are quickly reaching an inflection point in the promotion of green driving, after which, if the alternative energy lobby can’t come up with a cohesive, comprehensive and consistent message, the general public is going to tune out all its protestations of doom and gloom. Diesel and hybrid owners need to stop fighting like spoiled siblings over which is greener than thou when, in fact, a combination diesel hybrid is an ideal alternative to our gluttonously fossil-fueled vehicles. Elon Musk should get his head out of his ass and realize that the most practical and convenient emissions-free alternative to internal combustion would be a Model S-like battery electric vehicle (BEV) with a fuel cell-powered range extender.

So, here’s to hoping that the alternative energy crowd starts acting more like our LGBT friends. Yes, they may be dressed up in bondage gear and leather chaps, but they’re way, way ahead of the pious proselytizers of alternative vehicles, each trying to preach their narrow-minded message to an increasingly tuned out mainstream.

The recipe for the ultimate pollution-free car

Elon Musk, co-founder and CEO of American electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Motors, poses with a Tesla during a visit to Amsterdam on January 31, 2014. As of today, Musk opened up all patents originally held by Tesla in a bid to further the development of electric cars.

Elon Musk, Tesla’s outspoken CEO, is fond of proposing his idyll of gasoline-free driving. In his Utopian vision, he always downplays the inconvenience of driving electric (despite all the hoopla about his “Superchargers”, it still takes 10 times as long to tank up a Model S as a gasoline-fueled sedan). He consistently demeans hydrogen fuel cells as a lesser alternative to reducing emissions. And yet, the ultimate pollution-free automobile might well be one of his Tesla Model S’s backed up with a fuel cell range extender. Think about it for a second: an 85-kWh Tesla has a range of more than 300 kilometres, more than enough for virtually all inner city and even suburban driving. Urban refueling stations — gasoline or electrical — could become a thing of the past. And since hydrogen requires about the same two minutes for a fill-up, there won’t be the massive lineups at highway gas stations that a BEV’s 20-minute recharging is sure to engender if it ever does become popular.